“Time is money.”
 
Benjamin Franklin wasn’t actually the originator of this time-honored phrase; while he did include it in an essay, the phrase had already appeared in a newspaper by 1719. 300 years later, I think most of us are still familiar with the basic concept of the phrase – at least, to some extent.
 
It’s a sort of Puritan idea in its original intent: Because you could be making money with your time, any time when you aren’t making money amounts to money lost. The phrase was intended to be a warning against laziness and idleness, two of the greatest common sins that could be committed in the work-centered culture of the early American colonies. The rooting in that time and setting is obvious, along with the assumptions it makes about working, payment, and the importance and virtue of making money.
 
In our modern world, we tend to use the same phrase in a different context, and with a bit less strict of a meaning. Our focus is less on the idea of actively losing money by not working, and more on the importance of efficient use of time. In a world of hourly wages, every minute counts towards that paycheck. With the breakneck pace of a digital world, everyone is constantly striving to have the fastest turnaround time, the quickest marketing, the narrowest gap between a need arising and meeting that need – with accompanying payment, of course.
 
When time is money, there’s no time to waste. No time for frivolous pursuits like entertainment or relaxation; no time for slower efforts or second checks or anything less than the most efficient options; maybe no time even for volunteering or any labor that doesn’t receive the best compensation it could.
 
But what if we could take a less cynical and miserly approach to that same idea?
 
It’s an irrefutable fact that modern American culture is still largely founded on ideas that were brought here in our nation’s infancy. Ideas of society and how it should operate came across the sea, carried by the colonists who dared to leave their homes for a New World. As the colonies of North America were formed and shaped, those ideas were tested and adapted as well. As the United States began its westward expansion, new ideas were formed as well, either brought by new waves of immigrants, learned from native populations, or shaped wholesale from the experiences that settlers had as they spread from Atlantic to Pacific.
 
Throughout all this time, though, and amid all the many swirling cultures and experiences that shaped the ever-changing and myriad ideas of American society, one thread has remained clear. The average American concept surrounding work and money, especially in the northeastern region of our country, is very much rooted in the beliefs that the early New England settlers had.
 
They’re the old Puritan and Quaker values about an honest hard day’s work. Ben Franklin, himself having lived throughout the New England and Mid-Atlantic colonies, did an admirable job of collecting, cataloguing, and creating many of the common sayings and aphorisms that summarize those feelings (although many have been changed over time, or misattributed).
 
“A penny saved is a penny earned” – Don’t waste your money, because it’s twice as valuable if you save it for when you need it later.
 
“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” – Getting proper rest is important, so you can be productive and proper in your waking life.
 
“God helps them that help themselves” – Prayer and religion were central to the life of many colonists, but even God didn’t hand out charity or help anyone for free.
 
And, of course, “Time is money.”
 
But even with such a clear focus on the all-important work day, it’s clear that early American colonists weren’t purely concerned with earning money, and neither were generations that came after them. We have countless anecdotes and stories and accounts of charitable endeavors by individuals and communities to help one another.
 
Someone’s house or barn is destroyed or damaged, and the whole town pitches in to help with repairs or raise a new structure. A farmer doesn’t have enough hands to bring in the harvest, so his neighbors help to make sure all the crops are brought in. And more recently, there are so many records of neighbors and community members looking after their own. The so-called “penny auctions” of the Great Depression are one of the most famous and recognizable movements of this kind: whole towns would come together to buy foreclosed properties for ridiculously low prices from the banks, only to turn around and return them to the original owners, so they could continue living in their homes.
 
So even if time is money, it can’t be as simple as a conversion from minutes or hours to dollars and cents. Our communities have always been built around supporting one another: you give time and effort into the community, because the community will give that time and effort back to you. “Time is money” doesn’t have to mean a relationship between time spent and money earned; it can be about time itself as a sort of currency, one that can be exchanged back and forth for goods and services.
 
It seems like an almost foreign concept in a modern world that often feels so impersonal and so obsessed with chasing the dollar – and yet, now more than ever, that idea seems to be making a comeback.
 
It’s the idea behind time banks: community-driven organizations for the exchange of time itself as a unit of “currency” between members. Put time in by contributing to the community with skills you already have; get time out from other members by requesting services they can already offer.
 
One member might offer music lessons for someone else, meeting with them for an hour or two on whatever schedule might work for them. In exchange, they use those hours to request that someone help them with yardwork, or house cleaning. The person who helps with that work uses the hours they earned to get a babysitter. And the whole community can come together for a potluck dinner, all earning and spending their hours to have a great meal and an evening of togetherness.
 
Normally, you’d think of all those activities as ones driven by the dollar economy. You pay for the music lessons; you hire someone for the yardwork; you pay the babysitter; you spend for a night out at a restaurant. But thanks to the time bank, none of the members had to spend any money.
 
In this case? “Money is time.”
 
If you’re interested in joining our community’s very own time bank, the Susquehanna Valley Time Bank, make sure to visit our website’s page:
https://www.communityzonelewisburg.org/timebank.html
From there, you can join the time bank and take part in this exciting opportunity to give and receive as part of the community.

Yesterday evening was the first concert for this summer's run of LIVE! from Lewisburg, which was an amazingly fun and exciting event. I'll admit it was also a bit exhausting, in a very good way! We got up even before the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning to promote the show live on WNEP's morning news cycle, and of course on the day of there was lots of setup to take care of - and then packing things up after the concert was over.

In any case, the whole thing has music on my mind, so I suppose that's the purpose of this week's update from me. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that music has always been a big part of my life, and a driving factor for my involvement in the communities where I live. Growing up, I was introduced to a wide range of music by my parents: classic rock, country, jazz, folk songs, Broadway soundtracks, blues... About the only thing I don't remember hearing regularly throughout my youth is hip-hop or rap, and I've added even those to the mix of music I listen to now. Reader beware if you ever ask me what's on my playlists: it's an eclectic mix at best!

So music has always been part of my life, and the only thing that's changed about that over the years and the places I've lived is which radio stations I listen to. (One of the few things I really miss about New England - rock is my favorite, and in my opinion we have too few good rock stations in the Valley. Oh well.)

But music isn't something that happens in a vacuum on your own, not when you get really involved with it. Music means performance, and that means events happening around you! Concerts, shows, even just listening to music with other people: it's something that brings us together. I made a lot of friends through my school years by being part of the concert bands, and I've bonded with people throughout my life over the artists and songs that we like. And here's something fun to think about: every time you're singing along to the radio in your car, you're probably performing in unison with hundreds or thousands of other people tuned into that same station.

That's the sort of connection that music can bring to any community. And we're very hopeful and excited for all the connecting that the LIVE! from Lewisburg concerts will bring all summer long! I know I had a blast last night - I hope everyone who made it did, too, and I'm sure everyone will when they attend the next one.

Hello, one and all! This is Brian LeBlanc, the new Social Media and Technology Assistant with the CommUnity Zone, writing to you. I'm excited to be here, and excited to be part of things, and excited to be returning our blog to you folks! We're hoping that this will be a great space to let you all know what's new in the Susquehanna Valley, and for all of us to get to know each other a little better through what might be the best medium for it: storytelling.

I may be new to the CommUnity Zone and my direct involvement with Lewisburg, but I'm certainly no stranger to the area. I was born in Rhode Island, and spent my first 10 years in New England, mostly in western Massachusetts. But in 2006, my father was looking for a new job, and ended up finding a position in Pennsylvania, working for a college. He moved down to begin working while the rest of our family started packing and preparing to sell our house; I was the last to move because of commitments and opportunities with my schooling. By the end of the year, though, we were more or less set to move, and in January of 2007 we moved to a temporary home with my grandparents while we looked for a house to buy in proximity to Bucknell University.

Things ended up shaking out so I didn't move directly to Lewisburg - an older relative with property across the way from my grandparents' house ended up selling their house not long after we moved, and by the summer we were moving to that house up near Williamsport. That's where I lived all through the rest of middle and high school, but much of the entire Susquehanna Valley became familiar to me with time. My father worked in Lewisburg for Bucknell; I attended a summer camp in Mifflinburg; our church's synod assemblies, of which I was frequently a youth member, took place at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove. When I was looking for a college to attend myself, I visited schools up and down the East Coast, but ultimately the place that felt most at home was Susquehanna University, and so I spent four more of my most formative years in this wonderful area. And after a brief stint in Virginia, working at a few teaching jobs, I've found my way back to Williamsport and Lewisburg once more.

And what is it that's so drawing, so compelling, so simply beautiful about the Susquehanna Valley? I've explored it in the Creative Writing program at college, where a number of other students - locals and those from far away - felt the need to do the same. It may be one of those intangible feelings that eludes words. But there is something about this place that captivates and delights the people who spend any length of time here.

In part it must be the environment. The hills and forests and mountains that surround and occasionally punch through our valley lend a sense of hominess, a closeness and an enfolding security, as though the land itself wraps around us like loving arms. The fields and gulleys stretch for miles, green pastures that seem comforting under rain and sun alike. And, of course, the rivers: winding, burbling, constant things, the very heart and soul of the region, with the valley's namesake earning that distinction years after year. Water and rivers have always been the wellsprings of life, and all it takes is one morning or afternoon at the riverbank to realize how little that's changed in all our human years.

But more so than just a beautiful landscape, I think we boast, in our little Valley, a beautiful people. We have our struggles, to be sure, but it seems to me - having grown up in New England, and spent two years in Virginia - that the community of this region fits that word the best of any place I've lived. This is a place where people greet one another, where people know one another, where connections flourish. In the few weeks I've spent at the CommUnity Zone, it seems that every other day I meet someone new who's stopping by, often just to say hello.

This is a community: a place of neighbors and friends and families, a place of potluck dinners and local live music, a place of mornings and afternoons and evenings spent in backyards and at locally owned restaurants and down by the riverbanks.

This is home.

Being unemployed or underemployed isn’t necessarily a bad thing for us and more importantly it may be good for our community.  If you think this is a wild assertion, read on.

As late as the mid-19th century, the modern concept of “unemployment” didn’t exist in the United States. Most people lived on farms, and while paid work came and went, home industry—canning, sewing, and carpentry—was a constant. Even in the worst economic panics, people typically found productive things to do in their communities. The despondency and helplessness of unemployment were discovered, to the bafflement and dismay of cultural critics, only after factory work became dominant and cities swelled.  It was also true that the family unit was secure and was more closely reliant on each other.

Today, that close family unit has been in many cases, dismantled.  And, one theory of work holds that people tend to see and describe themselves in terms of their jobs, careers, or callings. Individuals who say their work is “just a job” emphasize that they are working for money rather than aligning themselves with any higher purpose. Those with pure careerist ambitions are focused not only on income but also on the status that comes with promotions and the growing renown of their peers. In the latter, one pursues a calling not only for pay or status, but also for the intrinsic fulfillment of the work itself.

Perhaps we should look at our capacity for compassion, deep understanding and our creative minds for the answers to our current woes and to our future.  Even if you are financially stable, simple leisure is certainly one outcome of the increasing loss of job opportunities, but I would argue that many of us can and should look passionately to find ways to find fulfillment and build productive communities outside the workforce.  The very things that help many of us are a routine, an absorbing distraction, a daily purpose, an identity, and a creative activity that leads to a sense of our autonomy.  What if we could find ways to find meaningful work without formal wages and a steady job, but instead through a number of other avenues of payment including a bartering system or one of money paid at the completion of a task that would not only satisfy ourselves but be good for our community?

Do you believe, as have many proposed, that we are heading for an dystopian future sitting on a couch wasting time or worse, entering into a life of crime, as witness to our growing and burgeoning prison system will attest, or do you ascribe to the notion of living a life full of purpose and fulfillment that can be achieved with community support and guidance?

Do you have an opinion whether we should be looking to our universities to embrace the notion that they should once again be cultural centers of inquiry instead of what they seem to be today, another job preparation center?

We need your voice and expertise to get some very exciting initiatives going.  We believe the answers to the questions and concerns of our time rest with us the individual and not with government.  History is clear on this issue; true and lasting change always begins and eventually happens from the bottom up and never from the top down. Civil Rights, Women’s Suffrage, Marriage Equality, Affordable Care Act, and the list go on. All of these advances happened on the backs of our sisters and brothers who came before us.

If these questions and assertions interest you, please join us. We are in need of partners and patrons to keep our important work going.  You can be a part of bringing us together to work toward positive change anytime, and for as little as $10 per month!  Visit, call, or email to discover other levels of support and find out what your support can do!

Not ready to commit? Check out our wish list on our website www.community-zone.org for quick and easy ways to support our mission.

Keri L. Albright, President & CEO of Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way and Juli Corrigan, former Director of Outreach and Community Education at the CSIU, delivered a dynamic, sobering lecture on poverty both nationally and locally, to a large number of residents and league followers on Tuesday, November 18th. 

Ms. Albright began by sharing with us the genesis of how the United Way began its intentional focus on poverty in 2005 by convincing the past board that the United Way was not affecting social change like they had hoped. After a two-year process of conducting community wide research on the root causes of many social problems in our society, it was agreed at the time that nobody else was working on these social problems on a large scale, and that the United Way could with all its resources tackle these social problems. United Way then changed their approach and instituted what is now referred to as the Priorities for Impact.

As many of you may know, the United Way is now set up with six councils of volunteers from a variety of social agencies to tackle the root causes of social problems in Northumberland, Snyder and Union Counties. The six councils are: Drug & Alcohol Abuse and Addiction, Poverty, Transportation, At-risk Teens, Quality Early Childhood Education and Acceptance and Understanding Diversity. Ms. Albright went on to share several wrenching and heartwarming stories of people she has met that deal with poverty on a daily basis. She also shared some striking numbers with the audience, including over 60,000 men, woman and children in Northumberland, Snyder and Union counties struggle at the extremes to afford the very basics and that the fastest and most likely way to be thrust into poverty is to be born there. Almost 8% of children in Pennsylvania are born into extreme poverty.

While there are a multitude of reasons for poverty in addition to being born into it, some of the other causes are a lack of education, divorce, a lack of job opportunity and the high cost of healthcare. Ms. Corrigan followed with some glaring and disturbing history and statistics on Poverty in America. She rightly pointed us to some good news about why we have made some progress since we declared the War on Poverty. The enactment of Social Security, Medicare and the importance of voting have helped many. She also shared with us how the government measures poverty. Clearly, the official poverty measure is way below what people actually need to survive. The second, and not so well known measure is the supplemental poverty measure which includes the basics of keeping families fed and warm, and finally the Living Wage, which is what individuals need to not only survive but thrive in our society.

Ms. Corrigan shared with the audience many slides of what counts as poverty. According to 2014 guidelines:

• One person is $11,670
• Two, $15,730
• Three, $19,790
• Four, $23,850
• Five, $27,910
• Six, $31,970
• Seven, $36,030
• Eight, $40,090

And for those who are not aware, the difference between minimum wage, poverty wage and living wage is as follows:

• Poverty Wage, $5.21 per hour
• Minimum Wage, $7.25 per hour
• Living Wage, $8.29 per hour

And finally, Ms. Corrigan focused on the dangerous path our elderly are facing. Nine out of ten 65 and older receive Social Security and 38% of that income is what they use to live on. The out of pocket expenses of the elderly that Medicare does not cover is herculean. According to a 2007 study:

• The median senior credit card debt is $27,213
• Increased filings for bankruptcy for ages 65 and older (1991-2007) 150%
• Increased filings for bankruptcy for ages 76 and older (1991-2007) 433%

We can only imagine the magnitude of increase that is present today.While what we learned in the presentation was disturbing and appalling, we were also left with some possible solutions.

• Stay alert to the challenges our neighbors are facing.
• Educate each other on those challenges.
• Make sure our state and local officials are aware of those challenges and most importantly, work hard to keep the issues on their minds and expect action.
• And finally, join each other in finding ways to make those changes and be involved.

In closing, I share some words of wisdom from Martin Luther King:

“I ask of you, and of myself, is that we constantly interrogate our own complicity with excess, that we always remain vigilant to notions of community that might, perhaps against our best intentions, sometimes, embrace a system of domination at the expense of others. Can we radically submit ourselves to the pursuit of equality and justice for all? If we choose to call ourselves Asian American, can we not also choose to be that kind of American that refuses to accept what America has been, and instead help build a better America even for others, who might not immediately seem to “belong” to us?In the end, whom do we mean by “us”? For me, if I choose to belong to a coalition, a community, an “us,” it must mean, we who remember the past; we who care about the future; we who are compassionate, generous, patient, and committed deeply to the welfare of others; we who agree that naming ourselves as an “us” is not an end, but a beginning.”

Additional Resources:

Elder Economic Security Standard (“Elder Index”)
http://www.basiceconomicsecurity.org/gateway.aspx (need to create a username and password to access local data)

Social Security Basic Facts
http://www.ssa.gov/news/press/basicfact.html

Poverty Rates in PA
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/povertyrates/#.VGjgm_nF-So

Wage Comparison for Union County
http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/42119

Poverty Rates for Children and the Elderly
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/

State-by-State Snapshot of Poverty Among Seniors: Findings from Analysis of the Supplemental Poverty Measure
http://kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/a-state-by-state-snapshot-of-poverty-among-seniors/

How is Poverty Measured in the United States?
http://www.irp.wisc.edu/faqs/faq2.htm

2014 Poverty Guidelines
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/14poverty.cfm

How Does Bankruptcy Law Impact the Elderly’s Business and Housing Decisions?
http://www.personal.kent.edu/~srohlin/docs/Bankruptcy-NGS-SMR-Publication.pdf

How Much Is Enough? Out-of-Pocket Spending Among Medicare Beneficiaries: A Chartbook
http://kff.org/health-costs/report/how-much-is-enough-out-of-pocket-spending-among-medicare-beneficiaries-a-chartbook/

Seniors Intervention Group Slide 16
http://seniorsinterventiongroup.org/who-we-are

Beyond Poverty: Preliminary Findings from the 2013-2014 Empowering Opportunities: Gateways Out of Poverty Initiative
http://www.pahousegop.info/docs/Reed/beyondpovertyreport2014/index.html